Human Quirks: Health & Medicine

April 16, 2024

Top Headlines

Revolutionary Molecular Device Unleashes Potential for Targeted Drug Delivery and Self-Healing Materials

Apr. 10, 2024 — In a new breakthrough that could revolutionise medical and material engineering, scientists have developed a first-of-its-kind molecular device that controls the release of multiple small molecules ...

Did You Know That Physical Activity Can Protect You from Chronic Pain?

Mar. 27, 2024 — Reserachers found that people who were more active in their free time had a lower chance of having various types of chronic pain 7-8 years later. For example, being just a little more active, such as going from light to moderate activity, was ...

Universal Brain-Computer Interface Lets People Play Games With Just Their Thoughts

Apr. 1, 2024 — Engineers have created a brain-computer interface that doesn't require calibration for each user, paving the way for widespread clinical ...

Secrets of the Naked Mole-Rat: New Study Reveals How Their Unique Metabolism Protects Them from Heart Attacks

Mar. 27, 2024 — This unusual, subterranean mammal with extreme longevity shows genetic adaptations to low oxygen environments which could offer opportunities for advancing other areas of physiological and medical ...

Latest Headlines

updated 5:57pm EDT

Genomic Research May Help Explain Cancer Resistance in Tasmanian Devils

Mar. 28, 2024 — Through DNA sequencing of Tasmanian devils and their tumors, researchers have tracked the genomic interactions between the animals and the ...

Scientists Extract Genetic Secrets from 4,000-Year-Old Teeth to Illuminate the Impact of Changing Human Diets Over the Centuries

Mar. 27, 2024 — Researchers have recovered remarkably preserved microbiomes from two teeth dating back 4,000 years, found in an Irish limestone cave. Genetic ...

Researchers Show That Introduced Tardigrade Proteins Can Slow Metabolism in Human Cells

Mar. 26, 2024 — Tardigrade proteins are potential candidates in technologies centered on slowing the aging process and in long-term storage of human ...

If Faces Look Like Demons, You Could Have This Extraordinary Condition

Mar. 22, 2024 — Imagine if every time you saw a face, it appeared distorted. Well, for those who have a very rare condition known as prosopometamorphopsia (PMO), which causes facial features to appear distorted, ...

DNA Origami-Based Vaccines Toward Safe and Highly-Effective Precision Cancer Immunotherapy

Mar. 15, 2024 — Researchers have created a DNA origami platform called DoriVac, whose core component is a self-assembling square block-shaped nanostructure. DoriVac ...

Milk to the Rescue for Diabetics? Cow Produces Human Insulin in Milk

Mar. 13, 2024 — An unassuming brown bovine from the south of Brazil has made history as the first transgenic cow capable of producing human insulin in her milk. The advancement could herald a new era in insulin ...

CSI in Space: Analyzing Bloodstain Patterns in Microgravity

Mar. 8, 2024 — As more people seek to go where no man has gone before, researchers are exploring how forensic science can be adapted to extraterrestrial environments. A new study highlights the behavior of blood in ...

Researchers Develop Artificial Building Blocks of Life

Mar. 8, 2024 — For the first time, scientists have developed artificial nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA, with several additional properties in the ...

Space Tourism? Cosmic Radiation Exposure

Mar. 5, 2024 — Space weather experts are urging regulators and space tourism innovators to work together to protect their passengers and crews from the risks of space weather radiation ...

Sprinting 'Like a Jet' Will Produce Premier League Strikers of Tomorrow, Study Shows

Mar. 5, 2024 — Sprinting 'like a jet plane taking off' will help produce Premier League star strikers of tomorrow, new research has revealed. A new study of ...

New Dressing Robot Can 'Mimic' the Actions of Care-Workers

Mar. 4, 2024 — Scientists have developed a new robot that can 'mimic' the two-handed movements of care-workers as they dress an ...

Study Identifies Multi-Organ Response to Seven Days Without Food

Mar. 1, 2024 — New findings reveal that the body undergoes significant, systematic changes across multiple organs during prolonged periods of fasting. The results demonstrate evidence of health benefits beyond ...

Scientists ID Burned Bodies Using Technique Used for Extracting DNA from Woolly Mammoths, Neanderthals

Feb. 29, 2024 — A technique originally devised to extract DNA from woolly mammoths and other ancient archaeological specimens can be used to potentially identify badly burned human remains, according to ...

Radio Waves Can Tune Up Bacteria to Become Life-Saving Medicines

Feb. 29, 2024 — Scientists have found a new way to alter the DNA of bacterial cells -- a process used to make many vital medicines including insulin -- much more efficiently than standard industry ...

Double Trouble at Chromosome Ends

Feb. 28, 2024 — New findings suggest the end-replication problem, an old standby of biology textbooks, is twice as intricate as once ...

Lab-Spun Sponges Form Perfect Scaffolds for Growing Skin Cells to Heal Wounds

Feb. 23, 2024 — A new technique for electro-spinning sponges has allowed scientists to directly produce 3D scaffolds -- on which skin grafts could be grown from the patient's own ...

Bat 'Nightclubs' May Be the Key to Solving the Next Pandemic

Feb. 20, 2024 — Researchers are studying how bats can carry deadly viruses, but not develop symptoms. They found that what happens during swarming behavior -- like social gatherings for bats -- may hold the key to ...

A New Glue, Potentially Also for You

Feb. 19, 2024 — Hydrogels are already used in clinical practice for the delivery of drugs, and as lenses, bone cement, wound dressings, 3D scaffolds in tissue engineering and other applications. However, bonding ...

New Study Analyzes Link Between Digit Ratio and Oxygen Consumption in Footballers

Feb. 16, 2024 — The efficiency of oxygen supply to tissues is a factor in the severity of important diseases such as Covid-19 and heart conditions. Scientists already know that the relationship between the length of ...

Smart Earrings Can Monitor a Person's Temperature

Feb. 7, 2024 — Researchers introduced the Thermal Earring, a wireless wearable that continuously monitors a user's earlobe temperature. Potential applications include tracking signs of ovulation, stress, ...

Researchers 3D-Print Functional Human Brain Tissue

Feb. 1, 2024 — It's an achievement with important implications for scientists studying the brain and working on treatments for a broad range of neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders, such as ...

A Long-Lasting Neural Probe

Jan. 26, 2024 — An interdisciplinary team of researchers has developed a soft implantable device with dozens of sensors that can record single-neuron activity in the brain stably for ...

DNA from Preserved Feces Reveals Ancient Japanese Gut Environment

Jan. 24, 2024 — DNA from ancient feces can offer archaeologists new clues about the life and health of Japanese people who lived thousands of years ago, according to a new ...

DNA Origami Folded Into Tiny Motor

Jan. 19, 2024 — Scientists have created a working nanoscale electomotor. The science team designed a turbine engineered from DNA that is powered by hydrodynamic flow inside a nanopore, a nanometer-sized hole in a ...

Ancient 'Chewing Gum' Reveals Stone Age Diet

Jan. 18, 2024 — What did people eat on the west coast of Scandinavia 10,000 years ago? A new study of the DNA in a chewing gum shows that deer, trout and hazelnuts were on the diet. It also shows that one of the ...

Tests Can Reveal Whether an Antibody Can Turn Into a Killer

Jan. 17, 2024 — A promising antibody failed testing. This is good news for developing a broad-spectrum antidote against the world's most dangerous snake ...

Squishy, Metal-Free Magnets to Power Robots and Guide Medical Implants

Jan. 16, 2024 — 'Soft robots,' medical devices and implants, and next-generation drug delivery methods could soon be guided with magnetism -- thanks to a metal-free magnetic gel developed by researchers. ...

Drinkable, Carbon Monoxide-Infused Foam Enhances Effectiveness of Experimental Cancer Therapy

Jan. 12, 2024 — The intriguing finding that smokers did better than non-smokers in a clinical trial for an experimental cancer treatment led researchers to develop a drinkable, carbon monoxide-infused foam that ...

Pain-Based Weather Forecasts Could Influence Actions

Jan. 13, 2024 — For individuals who experience chronic pain, weather can be a significant factor in their day-to-day plans. In a recent study, about 70 percent of respondents said they would alter their behavior ...

Prehistoric Person With Turner Syndrome Identified from Ancient DNA

Jan. 11, 2024 — Researchers have developed a new technique to measure the number of chromosomes in ancient genomes more precisely, using it to identify the first prehistoric person with mosaic Turner syndrome ...